Page:Maria Felicia.pdf/272

 men were to be placed in the army, and the women kept at domestic work for the army, at the small pittance of three kreutzers a day. A part of them, conducted by soldiers, were now going into exile.

As the Brethren ascended a forest mountain over a steep pathway, they sang their old psalms, but when they reached the summit and looked back to their beloved country, lighted by one narrow, pale sunbeam resembling the faint, tearful smile of a sad mother parting with her children, the psalms died away and loud weeping followed. All fell upon the ground, took handfuls of earth and put it into their pockets and knapsacks as a sacred relic from their country. Driven by the soldiers, they had to arise long before they had finished their farewell prayers, and soon they disappeared in the forest.

The last in the procession of the exiles were an old man led by a tall, handsome young man, and a woman wrapped in a coarse cape with a capoch. These were doubtless husband and wife, and the old man the father of